Submerged Landscapes and Shipwrecks: The Fractioning of Marine Archaeology(?)

Summary

The study and management of submerged paleolandscapes is an extension of terrestrial prehistoric archaeology, but due to the location of the sites on now submerged lake margins and continental shelves, it is typically lumped into a general category of "underwater" or "marine" archaeology. Marine archaeology has been, and in many ways, still is, strongly associated with shipwrecks. In some ways, the lumping of shipwrecks and submerged landscapes into one category is beneficial, since many of the same tools, methods, and issues affect both submerged landscapes and historic resources. However, key differences are also present in both site distribution (shipwrecks are by nature portable sites) and theoretical approaches to identifying sites and investigating them. While there are clear differences between shipwrecks and submerged landscapes, is there a danger in further fractioning their practitioners? This paper will explore some of the benefits and highlight the pitfalls of treating all inundated sites as "marine archaeology".

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 83rd Annual Meeting, Washington, DC (2018)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 21624